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Resolution #1To do at least one
project in each home that restores the home's sense of spirit. Success! At our main home, we
redid the ceilings, which looks great. For a bonus, we re-did the guest room —
added some curtains, some new pillows, and generally made it more comfortable.
Come visit! (we also got some smaller projects finished and a good start on
others. Go us!) At Summit, I repainted
the back room cobalt blue, made a cozy mud room out of an ineffective closet,
and (mostly) did over the bar area). I still need a light and new flooring, but
it looks much better! Slow and steady process
at Winter, including walls done. Resolution #2At least one date night a
month. Success! This is my favorite
resolution ever. We have been true to it, and will repeat next year. Work
events (even if they are fun) don’t count, though we did go to one totally
non-work show (Book of Mormon) in September. Generally we just go somewhere
really good to eat (this month was The Rabbit Hole), or a couple of…

On Saturday, while Beatrix went to see "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" at CTC with my aunt, Patrick and I went out to various taprooms (Bang and Urban Growler, for the record). Our big topic of discussion was New Year's Resolutions (you can see it's a big topic for us around this time of year).

Here are his thoughts on how to handle it when you BOTH make important resolutions:

One of Beatrix's favorite movies this holiday season has been "The 12 Dogs of Christmas" (and its equally riveting sequel, "The 12 Dogs of Christmas 2: The Great Puppy Escape.") In both movies, a scrappy young girl who loves dogs saves the town with a holiday show featuring — well — the twelve dogs of Christmas (you know, "Five Golden Retrievers…")

Ever since we lost Geronimo, we've been looking for a new dog, but keeshonds are hard to find. Last week, though, the perfect chance came along. A keeshond puppy came up locally, with Midwest Animal Rescue. I had a board meeting and then court, but Patrick pounced on the process, filling in the application, having them check our references, and scheduling a home visit; we passed all with flying colors. We fell in love with her through her pictures and video. But, a family had applied just before us, who the adoption person did not think was seriously looking, and they ended up taking her. No puppy for u…

This is us standing just over the Nicaraguan border during our Costa Rica trip earlier this year. It's not exactly the best picture of us, but it has a great spirit to it, of discovery and doing new things and being together as a family, so I love it.

May you all have a wonderful holiday season, full of the things that make it a special time of the year for you. Thanks for being such an important part of our lives!

The first is cookies. My mother used to bake about 20 different kinds of cookies, dozens and dozens, starting just after Thanksgiving and freezing. I have taken a new spin on this — I make 1-3 kinds, and then participate in cookie exchanges so that I have a big variety. This year we had our usual wonderful exchange hosted by our friends Erica and Joe, and then I hosted one for the "First Grade Mafia" which was far more casual and still a ton of fun.

Coming home from the first exchange, we stopped a a great little vintage store I had wanted to go to for a long time called Omforme. While Beatrix tried on amazing vintage hats, I checked out their collection of framed matchbooks, and thus inspired went home to dig through my big jar and see what I had.

Most of them I got from my dad and were from his travels as a book salesman — and you would not believe how many of them were hotel matchbooks, which just seems strange now…

Beatrix has taken piano this fall through Project Cheer, a free program of the Shubert Club. I can't say enough great things about it — she learns a ton (including music theory) in just 15 minutes a week!

We were also given a piano earlier this fall, and so she can practice at home. Practicing has been … trying … lately, but she's getting a sense of the work needed to do well.

Today was her first recital. Her song was "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas" (Christmas themed recital), and she nailed it! I was so proud of all the work that she has done and how well she did. It was also good for her to see that the other kids sometimes make mistakes, too, and just move on.

One of my New Year's resolutions was to back four Kickstarter campaigns, so that I could find out more about how crowd funding works and to get savvier so I could help my clients more. I have to admit, though, the more I learned, the less I liked. Whereas tech Kickstarter campaigns seemed to bring in early adopters and get a lot of buzz, arts funding seemed more problematic — whether it was Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or any of the smaller engines, nothing seemed to grab me. (I have to admit my final gift was to a Go Fund Me site for a pet).

But last night, I went to a great presentation from Seed and Spark, which is exclusively for film-related projects. As well as crowd funding for film production, the site also has a video-on-demand function once the film is completed. Their focus is not on simply getting funding, but on building a strong community for your film production — building long-term relationships and audiences. The idea is then to create concentric circles, so on your NE…